Mockingbird
by Miko Maleficus
Summary: Hush, little baby, don't say a word... Postwar, darkfic, sort of DG.


**Author:** Miko Maleficus  
**Title: **Mockingbird  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre:** Angst/Horror  
**Word Count: **2,651  
**Summary: **Hush, little baby, don't say a word... Post-war, darkfic, sort of D/G.  
**Disclaimer: **_Harry Potter _belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, &c. I don't own the nursery rhyme, either, although it's probably public domain by now. Whatever.

**Author's Note: **...why are there never the appropriate categories. Argh argh argh. Die, Pit. There needs to be a "darkfic" category.

Anyway. This thing took me about a year to write, which is ridiculous, but okay. This is _so _far off from my usual type of fic I have no idea where it came from or what inspired it... but I do like it. Please leave a review, I'm an actor and I live on my ego.

-o-o-o-

"Hush, baby," she whispered.

Tears spilled out of startling green eyes. "Oh, hush, baby," she whispered again.

"Is something wrong?" he asked from the doorway.

She glanced up at her other pair of green eyes. "No. Nightmares."

Relief. "Oh."

"Go back to bed. I'll be there in a minute."

A nod, a brush of lips over two soft cheeks.

She smiled after him; smiled down at the baby with his eyes.

-o-o-o-

This was perfection; this was what she'd dreamed of so many years ago: a small child curled around a teddy bear, wishing on stars that burned like _Incendio._

He had his Auror job, the one he'd always said he would. There was no real danger these days, not since His death.

There was no reason to worry. There was nothing to fear.

He came home to her every night. They ate dinner, Mommy and Daddy and Baby gathered around the table. Then it was Baby's bedtime, and Mommy and Daddy could be alone.

He made love to her slowly, lips feathering across her neck and shoulders. She murmured his name over and over into the heated dark.

In the morning he kissed her goodbye, and "I love you." She sang along with the radio as she washed the breakfast dishes, as she did their laundry. Made the beds. Weeded the garden.

Mommy and Baby had lunch together every day; Mommy and Baby went to the park; Mommy and Baby played with the dog, and perhaps went to tea with Mommy's friends.

Then Daddy came home, and it began again.

And it was perfection.

Except for -

- there was after all the Dream. The Dream of the Boy with the haunting haunted dark eyes, who seduced her with a word and an extended hand: long pale fingers stretching out to take her own.

The Boy's eyes glowed in the shadows that hid in the corners of the Dream. The Boy's eyes burned where their gaze touched her skin.

The Boy made her hurt herself. He made her hurt her friends.

The Boy laughed at her, and she hid in His shadows.

And oh, how she loved Him...

But the Dream was not every night. And when it was, there was her real boy, her hero-boy of childhood dreams, with the green eyes that smiled at her and told her everything was all right.

And she would forget the Dream for a while; after all, the Dream was only every few weeks, and under that emerald-tinted gaze easily dismissed.

And it was perfection.

-o-o-o-

"It's been four years."

"Yes, I know."

"Her mind is gone."

"I can see that."

"You're still giving her the drugs."

"I am aware of my actions, boy. Do not dare to question me."

A sigh; silver-eyed malevolence. "No, Father. Of course not."

_I'm not a child, _he wanted to say. _You're wrong, _he wanted more.

He would not dare.

Instead he watched her, through the charmed glass that allowed them to hear any words she might speak.

Or sing. She sang rather a lot, he had noticed.

He wondered if his exalted father had.

She had a nice voice.

_Hush little baby, don't say a word  
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird  
And if that mockingbird don't sing  
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring..._

He watched as she cradled the little dirty bundle in her arms, so gently, and sang to it as though she thought it could hear her.

They'd taken her dead infant from her long ago.

His father walked away down the hall, saying nothing, knowing that he would follow.

"I'm sorry, Ginny," he whispered, and left.


End file.
